Does God know the future, in detail, the way he knows the present and the past? After last month’s look at God and time, it is now time (ahem) to ask this follow-up question. One book arguing against God’s foreknowledge has the curious title God of the Possible (Boyd 2001), which makes me wonder.
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Why would we want to serve and worship the God of the possible? Would we not rather serve the God of the impossible? Isn’t the latter how Luke 1:37 and Matthew 19:26 characterize God: “For nothing will be impossible with God”, and: “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible”? And shouldn’t “all things” include God foreknowing the future?
In all fairness, however, we should not expect God to be able to do what is logically and otherwise impossible because it leads to absurdities. Creating a square circle would be in this category and, according to Greg Boyd, so is knowing what people will freely choose to do in the future. Strictly speaking, then, the book is about the God of the non-absurd. But no one would buy a book with that title, so I understand that the author went with God of the Possible.
[Note: In addition, and probably more importantly, the author seems to have Openness Theology in view with his title: God is not the God of certainty, through foreknowledge of the future, but the God who knows, and works with, the possibilities of an undetermined future. The implied contrast is not so much possible and impossible but rather possible and certain.]
But is it absurd and therefore impossible for God to know the future? This is a far more interesting question than the pros and cons of a book title. My reflection on it makes for another long issue after last month’s look at God and time (obviously, the two subjects are related). I thoroughly enjoyed writing it and I think it was worth the investment. (I will try to come up with something shorter and simpler again next time.) I will first state in brief summary the argument in favour of foreknowledge (for a slightly longer introduction, see chapter 1 in Craig 1987 and the appendix in Craig 2001). Then I take a more extensive and critical look at the case against it.
What is at stake, by the way, is whether God foreknows the decisions and choices of humans. Everyone agrees that God foresees things like solar eclipses, earthquakes, and the movement of objects in space. In such cases, we are dealing with strict cause-and-effect relationships. But what about the supposedly free decisions of intelligent and morally responsible agents? It is here that opinions diverge.
In Favour of Foreknowledge
1. Foreknowledge and several related terms such as to foreknow and to foresee are words that appear in the Bible. The concept was well established in the ancient world. Scripture appears to affirm it.
2. There are more than a few examples in Scripture where God foreknows – and foretells – what will happen and what people will do.
3. Church history shows that belief in God’s foreknowledge was virtually unanimous among Christians until quite recently. This is different from views of time and God’s eternity, on which the historical record shows a measure of diversity. Augustine could categorically exclaim: “For a being who does not know all the future is certainly not God” (Augustine 1972: 194; Book V.9).
Much later, C. S. Lewis wrote: “Everyone who believes in God at all believes that He knows what you and I are going to do tomorrow” (C. S. Lewis 1977: 145). As recent as the 1940s, Lewis simply assumed that being a Christian implied faith in God’s foreknowledge. This does not prove God’s foreknowledge, but it does count for something.
Different Versions of Belief in Foreknowledge
Although Christians used to agree on foreknowledge, they differed (and still differ today) in their understanding of it. It may be useful to briefly list four common explanations.
The static view of time and the timeless view of God: if time is static, that is, all of time exists now, and if God is outside of time, foreknowledge becomes somewhat easier to imagine. In that case, God is, in a sense, located before or in front of time and overlooks all of it from his timeless position. Past and future events are all eternally present to him. I don’t consider this view of time likely, but it would provide us with a relatively simple explanation of foreknowledge.
The Augustinian and Calvinist view: God foreknows because he foreordains (or predestines). He logically (fore-)knows what he has decided that will happen. In this view, there is nothing mystical or surprising about God’s foreknowledge. It does lead to vexing questions about human freedom and responsibility. Some Calvinists deny human freedom or redefine free will in such a way that it is arguably not free anymore. Other Calvinists affirm both predestination and freedom. How both can be true is, of course, a perennial theological discussion.
Unfortunately, in discussing foreknowledge, Calvinists focus on questions of salvation. They generally fail to look beyond salvation to other choices and decisions that humans make, often by all appearances at least to some extent free (Paul Helms is a case in point; see Chapter 4 in Beilby and Eddy 2001). Such decisions also impinge on the possibility of foreknowledge. It may be true that humans can do nothing to turn themselves toward God and be saved, that we are not free to choose God but only to reject God, as Augustine and Calvin argued. But what about all the other choices that have nothing to do with our salvation, choices that are often morally indifferent? Are they free? If so, how can God foreknow them? And if he foreknows them, how can they be free?
Simple foreknowledge is precisely that: the belief that God simply knows what the future will be because he is God, without offering an explanation. It comes with being God.
Middle knowledge is the view advocated by William Lane Craig (see Chapter 3 in Beilby and Eddy 2001 and Chapter 12 in Craig 1987). It not an easy concept. Middle knowledge is hypothetical knowledge. God knows what person X would freely choose to do if situation Y were true or real and what X would freely choose if, instead of Y, Z were the case. Based on this middle knowledge, God decides which world he wants to make real, Y or Z. This gives God control over what will happen without having to intervene in the free-will decisions of his creatures. This is therefore more an explanation of how God’s sovereignty and human freedom can both be true than an explanation of foreknowledge, although it does add depth to the concept: God knows not only what will be but also what could have been.
We now turn to a fifth view, that of Open Theism, and the argument against God’s exhaustive foreknowledge of the future.
The Future Does Not Exist
The first argument claims that there is nothing to see or to know. Because the future does not exist, it cannot be known.
We should recognize that this implies a radical redefinition of omniscience. The term has always been understood as God knowing everything about the past, the present, and the future. In Open Theism, God’s knowledge of the future is limited; it excludes all the free decisions of creatures with free will.
Opponents of Open Theism argue that it is not obvious that knowledge of the future is impossible. The Openness argument fails, they say, because it assumes and asserts its claim but does not prove it. They also complain that the redefined concept does not qualify as omniscience; it would be fairer to say that, on the Openness view, God is not omniscient.
William Lane Craig puts it this way: “God innately knows only and all true statements. Since true future-tense statements are included among them, he foreknows the future” (Craig 1987:121f). Even humans have beliefs about the future. Often enough, these turn out to be wrong. But God does not hold a false belief. He must therefore have beliefs about the future, and these beliefs cannot be wrong. In other words, it would seem that, in order to be God, God must know the future: he has to be truly omniscient, so the counterargument.
The burning question, of course, is: How can the future be known? Or more precisely, how can God know the future? Clearly, God does not ‘see’ the future in any literal sense, not only because there is nothing to see but also because God does not have eyes. Or ears. Human knowledge comes through our senses, or perhaps we know things because others have told us. But God does not have sense organs and he does not know because he was told. This is not just a problem for God’s future knowledge. It is also an open question how God knows anything else. How does God have exhaustive knowledge of the present and the past? He knows my heart and my thoughts better than I know them myself. He knows everything about me. He knows the number of hairs on my head. How does he acquire all this knowledge? Let’s be honest: we have NO idea. In the words of Psalm 139:6, “such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.”
Therefore, the fact that we don’t know how the future could be foreknown is not an argument against foreknowledge.
One more thing should be pointed out in response to the first argument. Even one example of God foreknowing would be enough to disprove the claim. (Therefore, every example in Scripture where God appears to foreknow what will happen needs an Openness explanation.)
Foreknowledge Implies Determinism
A second argument claims that foreknowledge implies determinism. If God foreknows what someone will do, that person is no longer free to do otherwise because God cannot be wrong. In formal logic:
(a) God foreknows that I will drink tea instead of coffee tomorrow.
(b) God cannot be wrong.
(c) Therefore, I have no choice; I must drink tea instead of coffee tomorrow.
However, the argument is based on logical error. The statements made reside in the realm of logic, not causation or chronology; it is logical that, if (a) and (b) are true, I will drink tea tomorrow. But it only establishes that something is a logical necessity: logically, if God foreknows something, then it will happen. There is no causal or other necessity involved that limits my options. Nothing is determined or even influenced by God foreknowing something; “must” is the wrong word here.
[Note: In some versions of the argument, even God himself becomes the victim of his own foreknowledge. Since he foreknows that I will drink tea and since he cannot be wrong, he is powerless to do anything about it; he cannot make me drink coffee or milk instead, because in that case, he would prove himself wrong.]
Let’s assume something for the sake of argument. If God were suddenly to cease existing, putting an end to his foreknowledge, would anything change? Would I suddenly be able to do something that before was impossible to me? Could I now drink coffee after all? Nothing has changed in or with me! There is no reason why God knowing something would have any effect on my behaviour.
In fact, as Craig (1987: 67f) points out, it is superfluous to have God and foreknowledge included in the equation. All we need is a statement about the future that is true. I can simplify the reasoning as follows:
(a1) I will drink tea instead of coffee tomorrow.
(b1) This statement is true.
(c1) Therefore, I have no choice: I must drink tea tomorrow.
Here is yet another way to bring out the logical fallacy. That I will drink tea instead of coffee chronologically follows God’s foreknowledge. But logically, it is prior to God foreknowing what I will do. God foreknows it because I will do it, not the other way around. This means: if I were to do something different, that is, I would not drink tea instead of coffee tomorrow, then God would foreknow something different as well.
Conclusion (c), therefore, is false. I do have a choice, regardless of whether God foreknows it. It should read:
(c) Therefore, I will (not I must) drink tea instead of coffee tomorrow.
Here is yet another way to present the issue:
(a2) God foreknows that I will freely choose to drink tea instead of coffee tomorrow.
(b) God cannot be wrong.
(c2) Therefore, I will freely choose to drink tea instead of coffee tomorrow.
Open Theists may retort that it is impossible for God to know this; if it is my free choice what I will drink tomorrow, God cannot know ahead of time what I will choose. But why would this be true? How do we know God’s knowledge is limited in this way? It is merely asserted, not proven.
What is true is that I don’t know how God knows it, but we already discussed this. That I don’t know or understand something hardly counts as an argument against it. I don’t know how God knows everything about the present and the past either.
It needs to be admitted that all of this does not prove foreknowledge. But it does answer the philosophical argument against it.
An interesting aside: the argument that foreknowledge implies determinism is not new. In fact, it is quite old. It was used in the late second century by the philosopher Celsus – as an argument against Christianity. The Church Father Origen of Alexandria countered that to foreknow or to foretell something is not the cause for that something to happen; it exercises no influence that makes it happen. What God predicts, must happen, but only in the sense that it is certain, not in the sense that it is necessary and compulsory, so Origen (Erickson 2004: 95f).
The argument is even older; it precedes Christianity. The Roman statesman and philosopher Cicero, who lived 106-43 BC, argued against the possibility of foreknowledge, especially in the context of divination. Because foreknowledge implies determinism, so Cicero, it would destroy free will, which would render the concept of holding people accountable in a court of law (Cicero was also a lawyer) and punishing them for crimes absurd. It is the same argument again: what is foreknown must of necessity happen and is therefore not free. Centuries later, the Church Father Augustine took Cicero to task for this line of reasoning, rather unkindly (Augustine 1972: 190-4; Book V.9):
Against such profane and irreverent impudence we assert both that God knows all things before they happen and that we do by our free will everything that we feel and know would not happen without our volition. We do not say that everything is fated; in fact we deny that anything happens by destiny. (Ibid.: 191f; Book V.9)
So we do find this line of reasoning early; it was known to the church fathers. The point to take notice of, however, is that it is the argument of pagan thinkers. Those church fathers who respond are adamant in their rejection. As Augustine concludes: “Hence we are in no way compelled either to preserve God’s prescience by abolishing our free will, or to safeguard our free will by denying (blasphemously) the divine foreknowledge” (ibid.: 195; Book V.10).
There Is Biblical Evidence That God Does Not Foreknow Many Things
There are numerous passages in the Bible that, if taken at face value, imply that God does not know the future. Advocates of God’s foreknowledge typically explain these passages as anthropomorphism. Anthropomorphism is a description or representation of God in human terms and analogies. If God shows himself surprised, for instance, this should be taken as a merely human way of speaking about God. He was not truly taken by surprise; the statement brings out how surprising something is from a human point of view.
I suspect that those who believe in foreknowledge see two more principles at work, besides anthropomorphism, which also guide their interpretation and which, in their view, affect the way Scripture speaks of God.
First, God does not normally relate to people on the basis of what they will do in the future; he relates to us within our present. Even if he knows the future, he by and large ignores such knowledge in relating to us.
Second, there is a rhetorical strategy involved. It serves little purpose for God to say through the prophets that he foreknew exactly that this was going to happen. What needs to be communicated is how shockingly wrong and out of place Israel’s behaviour is. The prophets seek to get through to people; they are not reflecting on the extent or limits of God’s omniscience.
This much about the traditional view. Open Theism argues that it is far too quick to explain statements about God as anthropomorphisms. It wants to take many of these statements more literally.
There is anthropomorphism in the Bible, and Open Theism acknowledges this. In fact, there is a lot of anthropomorphism in the Bible. We often read that God sees or hears or speaks, we read of his hands and face etc. None of this is literally true, even though it communicates things about God that are true indeed. So anthropomorphism is plentiful in the Bible. But it is valid to ask how literal each statement should be taken.
In what follows, I will discuss some of the most important examples brought forward by Open Theism in which it denies anthropomorphism and argues for a more literal reading.
God is frustrated. Especially in the prophets, God at times expresses his frustration over Israel’s behaviour. I don’t find this argument persuasive. One may well feel frustration even if the cause of it is something one anticipated.
God repents. This proves too much, at least if one insists on the King James translation of “repent” for the Hebrew word nicham. After all, in modern English repentance implies more than an error or mistake; moral wrongdoing has taken place. But surely no one wants to argue that God was morally in the wrong, for instance, when he appointed Saul king over Israel and later “repented” of this (1 Samuel 15; interestingly, the verb nicham is used four times in this chapter, twice to state that God did “repent” and twice to state that he does not “repent”).
Modern translations use words like regret, grieve, relent, and be sorry. Have a look at Judges 21:6 and 21:15, where Israel “repented” (King James Version) for Benjamin, after the tribe had almost been exterminated.
Open Theists do think that God can make mistakes and regret them (not repent of them). Since he does not fully know the future, he may engage in a course of action that turns out to be wrongheaded. And then God regrets and changes his mind, so Open Theism.
However, we should notice that to regret something may also carry the sense of to grieve; it does not necessarily imply mistake or error, in the sense of “I should have done something else”. But in that case, this is similar to the previous point. It does not prove the absence of foreknowledge. One may feel deep regret and pain over something even if one knew that it was going to happen. Case in point: the death of people you love, especially if they are significantly older than you. We all know that our grandparents and our parents are going to die. Knowing this does not prevent grief and regret when they do die.
God changes his mind. So, what if we update the language to “God changes his mind”? This appears closer to the Open Theist understanding than “repent”.
Is this anthropomorphism? Open Theists think not; they want to take the language seriously and not explain it away. But then, what about this word through the prophet Jeremiah, after the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, to those of Judah who were still left in the land:
If you will remain in this land, then I will build you up and not pull you down; I will plant you, and not pluck you up; for I relent [Heb. nicham] of the disaster that I did to you. (Jer. 42:10, ESV; emphasis added)
God had done exactly what he had said he would do. The outcome is exactly what he had said (and foreknew) it would be. Yet he relents or changes his mind. Here, without any change in the people involved. Humans do this all the time, of course: regret their chosen course of action once they see the consequences. But God? The implications seem worrisome.
What about God changing his mind when people repent? I already discussed the case of Nineveh’s repentance in the previous issue. Examples like these, where people change, hardly qualify as a true change in God; naturally, he responds differently to the repentant. And wasn’t this the whole point in sending Jonah to Nineveh, something the prophet understood all too well? God intended to spare the city from the start. This does nothing to prove God did not know what would happen.
Jeremiah 18:1-11 sums up the principle. If God threatens a nation with destruction and it repents, God relents (Hebr. nicham). And if he promises to build a nation and it turns to evil ways, he will also relent, of the good he intended to do. Is that change or is it consistency?
A different kind of example. What about Isaiah 38 and Hezekiah’s illness? God sends the prophet Isaiah to announce that Hezekiah will die. The king prays. Isaiah has not left the palace yet; he is sent back to announce God is adding 15 years to his life.
Does God change his mind this easily, almost capriciously? Did God not anticipate that, faced with such tidings, Hezekiah would pray? Or is this response precisely what he was aiming for?
Most likely, God here shares his middle knowledge: if nothing out of the ordinary happens, Hezekiah would die of this disease. Sharing this information is almost an invitation to pray. God is not taken by surprise. His answer to Hezekiah’s prayer therefore is instantaneous.
[Note: If God does not fully know the future, he is taking a risk with his promise to add 15 years to Hezekiah’s life. All sorts of free decisions both by Hezekiah and by others could have interfered with his lifespan.]
How about that great example of intercession in the Old Testament, Moses stepping into the gap when the people of Israel make the golden calf (Ex. 32; a similar episode is described in Nu. 14:11-20)? Did Moses manage to change God’s mind?
At first sight, he did. God tells Moses he wants to burn the people to ashes (Ex. 32:10). Taken at face value, it might suggest that God rather easily loses control in an outburst of violent emotion and lets his anger burn ready to strike. But perhaps we should not take this statement too literally.
Fortunately, Moses is there to remind God of his promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and to point out the consequences for God’s reputation among the Egyptians. One could get away from this passage thinking that Moses is more loving and caring than God! Better to fall into the hands of Moses than into the hands of God!
Or does the passage teach us how easily God is turned around through intercession and repentance because he strongly prefers to act mercifully (but needs a reason to do so in order to avoid the impression that it doesn’t matter what we do)? And seeing he sets Moses and Nineveh and us up to turn him around through intercession and repentance (what else did he expect they and we would do), is he really turned around or was he facing that way (the way of grace and forgiveness) all along? The quickness of God’s response to Moses suggests the latter:
And the LORD relented [nicham] from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people. (Ex. 32:14, ESV)
One last example under this heading. What about Genesis 6:6f (ESV):
And the LORD regretted [nicham] that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the LORD said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry [nicham] that I have made them.”
I am a bit surprised by the Open Theist insistence that this is to be taken literally. The book of Genesis is written in a deliberately simple style, full of anthropomorphism. God walks through the garden. He asks Adam and Eve what they have done (does this imply his ignorance of something in the present?). When humans build a tower, God comes down to see what they are doing. God visits Abraham on his way to Sodom because he has heard the outcry against it and wants to see for himself whether things really are that bad. Notice that this appears to put a limit not on God’s knowledge of the future but of the present. Taken literally, it would imply God is far from omniscient and that he is not omnipresent either (he has to go there to see). After deliberating with himself, God decides to share his intention with Abraham. At other times, God remembers things.
I realise it is a real question in interpretation where the line between anthropomorphism and more direct or more literal descriptions of God needs to fall. But I am not convinced by the line drawn in Open Theism. If we are to take the language in Genesis 6 literally, why not in these other passages? Or vice versa: If the other examples are not to be taken literally, why this one?
It is obviously possible to read examples like these in different ways. And therefore, they do not disprove foreknowledge.
God executes tests of obedience (e.g. Gen. 22; 2 Chron. 32:31), to know what is in people’s heart. I have never thought this a strong argument. God could never be sure we wouldn’t change our minds the next day. And seeing this is about what is in people’s heart, it is not a matter of the future but the present. Doesn’t he know?
God searches. In Ezekiel 22:30, God searches for a man who will “stand in the breach” for Israel but he doesn’t find one. Boyd argues:
It is difficult to understand how God could have sincerely “sought for” someone to intercede if he had been certain all along that there would be no one, as the classical view of foreknowledge must contend. Could someone genuinely search his house trying to find, say, a pair of shoes he knew he didn’t own? And even if someone did do this, would one consider him supremely wise for doing so? Of course not. Yet the classical view would have us believe that the all-wise God sought for an intercessor he eternally knew would not be found. Given that God tried to raise up an intercessor, is it not more reasonable to conclude that it was possible an intercessor would have responded to God? (Beilby and Eddy 2001: 28; emphasis in original)
The problem is… this is not about the future. The shoe is a present reality and so is the existence (or absence) of a potential intercessor. It is about the present. How come God did not know that such a person did not exist? Did he approach candidates and they did not respond? Were there no candidates? Shouldn’t God have known this? Why not Ezekiel or Jeremiah, both of whom were active at this point?
Ezekiel 22 is not an example that shows that God’s knowledge of the future is incomplete. It is possible to interpret it differently. It shows his heart and the dismal state of Judah. And it shows God relating to people in their present, not based on his foreknowledge.
God is surprised, shocked, disappointed. A classic example in this category is the Song of the Vineyard in Isaiah 5:
Let me sing for my beloved
my love song concerning his vineyard:
My beloved had a vineyard
on a very fertile hill.
He dug it and cleared it of stones,
and planted it with choice vines;
he built a watchtower in the midst of it,
and hewed out a wine vat in it;
and he looked for it to yield grapes,
but it yielded wild grapes.
…
What more was there to do for my vineyard,
that I have not done in it?
When I looked for it to yield grapes,
why did it yield wild grapes? (Is. 5:1-4, ESV; emphasis added)
Obviously, the vineyard is a poetic image for Israel (Is. 5:7). We have to wonder, though. Was God truly surprised by how Israel turned out or is Isaiah using this literary form to illustrate and express how out of line Israel’s behaviour was? And if God has indeed not anticipated this outcome, surely we must also take at face value the impression that God is bewildered and does not understand why it came out this way (“why did it yield wild grapes?”, Is. 5:4). If God did not know what would happen, neither does he now understand why it happened – something that relates to the past and the present, not the future. Sorry, but this strikes me as rather naïve from God’s side.
In Jeremiah God likewise expresses his disappointment; Israel did not act as he expected of her:
The LORD said to me in the days of King Josiah: “Have you seen what she did, that faithless one, Israel, how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and there played the whore? And I thought, ‘After she has done all this she will return to me,’ but she did not return, and her treacherous sister Judah saw it. (Jer. 3:6f, ESV; see also Jer. 3:19f)
In Ezekiel 12:3, God muses, “perhaps they will understand”. Jeremiah 26:3 is similar: “It may be that they will listen” in response to Jeremiah’s message.
We could conclude from this that God did not know what would happen. But surely by this time God knew better than to be surprised by Israel’s unrepentance?
If God knows all possibilities, as Open Theists concede, even if without knowing which of them will become reality, he should not be surprised or shocked by what happens. After all, he always knew it was among the possibilities. So even in Openness Theology such language must be anthropomorphic.
Greg Boyd tries to get away from this by arguing, “while God perfectly anticipates all possible outcomes, when the improbable occurs, it is by definition not what an omniscient God would expect to occur. He is perfectly prepared for it, to be sure. But this doesn’t negate the fact that it was improbable” (Beilby and Eddy 2001: 147).
In other words, in those cases God is surprised by the improbability of people’s immoral choices, not by the choice itself, which he knew was a possibility, even if an unlikely one. So it would seem God gets his probabilities wrong – looking at his responses to Israel’s unfaithfulness, rather badly. It is hundreds of years into the game, and God so consistently misjudges the probabilities of Israel’s moral decisions, still expecting a better, more positive outcome? What is the probability of that?
If by the time of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel God truly expected Israel would turn around and behave differently, he is naïve. In Open Theism, God certainly appears naïve; he always hopes for the best and is consistently disappointed by how things turn out. By this time, he should know how unreliable Israel and humanity are.
It gets worse. At one point, quite early in the game, God knew that it would be this way. He predicted it. Has he forgotten his own predictions?
For when I have brought them into the land flowing with milk and honey, which I swore to give to their fathers, and they have eaten and are full and grown fat, they will turn to other gods and serve them, and despise me and break my covenant. (Deut. 31:20, ESV; see also Deut. 32)
It gets even worse. Already right before the Flood, God concluded “that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5, ESV). Things are hardly better after the Flood: “The intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Gen. 8:21, ESV). So what is there to be surprised about? How can sin and rebellion be an improbable outcome?
Read in isolation, statements that express God’s surprise could be taken to mean that God genuinely did not know how Israel would respond. Alternatively, they may show how God relates to people in the present, without regard to what he knows about the future. And it shows his heart as understood from a human point of view. What needs to be communicated is how shockingly wrong and out of place Israel’s behaviour is. This is God’s rhetorical strategy at work.
If we look at the whole picture and not just at individual statements, I think there is good reason to take many of these examples as anthropomorphism indeed. Taking them at face value leads to implausible and absurd conclusions about God.
Predictive Statements in the Bible Need Reinterpretation
Open Theists are quick to admit that there are examples in the Bible where God foreknows something about the future; however, there is no statement that God foreknows everything about the future (Beilby and Eddy 2001: 16). But then, neither is there such a statement for the present or the past, and all believers at least agree that God knows everything about the present and the past.
If Open Theists are correct, the examples of God’s foreknowledge must be exceptions; they are special cases that need an explanation – every single one of them. God does not normally know what people will do, but sometimes he does. Below is a small sample of important cases.
God foretells his own actions. There are cases where God foreknows something because he has determined to do it. These things therefore do not depend on others. Not surprisingly, God foreknows what he will do.
This is no doubt true for many predictive statements in the prophets. However, there is a problem. Often, what God announces he will do is judgement, and the judgement will come through human agents, that is, nations such as the Assyrians and the Babylonians. They will build their empire with all sorts of violence and oppression. And then they will come with their war crimes and other evils and invade Israel or Judah, executing God’s judgement. God will hold them accountable for such evils. But he also predicts at least some of them in some detail.
In other words, God foreknows their freely chosen evil actions – the very thing that should not be possible.
Isaiah 41:22ff and 46:9ff. Isaiah contains several crucial statements that touch on foreknowledge:
Remember the former things of old;
for I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is none like me,
declaring the end from the beginning
and from ancient times things not yet done,
saying, ‘My counsel shall stand,
and I will accomplish all my purpose,’
…
I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass;
I have purposed, and I will do it. (Is. 46:9-11 ESV)
Let them bring them, and tell us
what is to happen.
Tell us the former things, what they are,
that we may consider them,
that we may know their outcome;
or declare to us the things to come.
Tell us what is to come hereafter,
that we may know that you are gods;
do good, or do harm,
that we may be dismayed and terrified.
…
Who declared it from the beginning, that we might know,
and beforehand, that we might say, “He is right”?
There was none who declared it, none who proclaimed,
none who heard your words. (Is. 41:22-26 ESV)
Boyd (Beilby and Eddy 2001: 14f) points out (a) that these passages do not claim God has exhaustive foreknowledge (he knows the end from the beginning and obviously at least some things in between, but not necessarily all), and (b) that in Isaiah 41:10f, God states he will do what he has purposed and announced; this makes it a clear example of God foretelling his own actions.
Boyd has a point; these passages do not claim that God foreknows everything. However, there is a bit more at stake than Boyd admits. The crucial distinction between God and the idols is not that God is able to do as he has purposed; it is that he is able to foretell what will happen. And this ability is essential to being divine: “Tell us what is to come hereafter, that we may know that you are gods” (Is. 41:23). This means: a being without the ability to foretell the future is not divine.
Josiah and Cyrus. In 1 Kings 13:2, an unnamed prophet announces the birth of king Josiah and declares the king will burn human bones on the altar Jeroboam has erected, a bit less than 300 years before Josiah was born. The second half of Isaiah includes several predictions related to the Persian king Cyrus, who is mentioned by name in Isaiah 44:28 and 45:1. This shows remarkable even if not necessarily exhaustive foreknowledge.
This is declared to be a special case, where God limits people’s freedom. As Gregory Boyd puts it: “These decrees obviously established parameters around the parents’ freedom to name these individuals … and also restricted the scope of freedom these individuals could exercise regarding particular foreordained activities” (Beilby and Eddy 2001: 19f).
There is a deep irony in this ‘solution’. Open Theism presents itself as the champion of human freedom and free will. However, on points like these, it proposes that God overrides the free will of his creatures. Apart from Hyper-Calvinism, no other view does this, not even mainline Calvinism. All views affirm both God’s foreknowledge and events coming about by the free choices of individuals, without any coercion.
It might be argued that in doing this, Calvinism ascribes to an internal contradiction (affirming both predestination and free will) or that Calvinism works with an unacceptably weak definition of free will. Even if that were the case, there are still other views such as simple foreknowledge and middle knowledge in which God does not coerce or restrain anyone. Only in Open Theism does God occasionally have to step in and do this.
And in these cases, the divine intervention needs to cover quite a bit. A long and remarkable sequence of events involving many people must go right, not only for Josiah and Cyrus to be born but also for them to be the individuals that there were – so they would eventually do what was foretold about them.
Peter. Before the cock crows twice, you will deny me three times. This is a remarkable prediction. It is not a warning; it is simply stated as a matter of fact. It won’t do to argue as Boyd does (Beilby and Eddy 2001: 20f) that by this time, Peter’s character was quite set and well-known. Yes, it is not surprising that Peter caves in under pressure. But the statement Jesus made includes an exact point in time and a specific number of denials. And how could Jesus be certain that Peter would come under severe pressure? Peter could have gone into hiding. He might not have entered the high priest’s court. Other people were involved and had to freely do the required thing (ask the question or express the accusation) to cause Peter to deny Jesus.
Boyd therefore adds that the high-pressure circumstances needed were something “which God could easily orchestrate, if he needed to” (Beilby and Eddy 2001: 20). By now, this has turned into quite an elaborate scenario. Jesus had made a statement and God would act behind the screen to make sure the statement would come true. In his response to Boyd, William Lane Craig concludes: “Boyd’s attempt to explain away Jesus’ prediction of Peter’s denials as an inference from his flawed character is fanciful. Granted that Jesus could infer that Peter would fail him, how could he infer that Peter’s failure would come in the form of denials, rather than, say flight or silence and how could he infer three denials before the cock crowed twice?” (Beilby and Eddy 2001: 57; emphasis in original).
There is a simpler explanation. Jesus foreknew what Peter would do.
Judas. Jesus knew that Judas would betray him. He did not merely know this toward the end when he might conceivably have ‘picked it up’ intuitively or otherwise. According to John 6:64, he knew this from the beginning, presumably the beginning of his public ministry. How could Jesus possibly foreknow that Judas would betray him three years ahead of time (at least)? On the basis of Judas’s character at that early point?
What if Judas had decided differently? At any point, rather than proceed with his intent of betrayal, he could have woken up to the moral wrong of his action (he certainly did so shortly after). Or he could have decided it wasn’t worth the hassle and simply gone home.
And yet his role, foretold in the Old Testament, was vital and had to be fulfilled. What if Judas had opted out in the last 48 hours? Did God have a backup? Who would have stepped in to fulfil Judas’s role if he had decided to exercise his freedom of choice to do otherwise?
By all appearances, Jesus simply foreknew what Judas would do.
Conclusion. What do we make of the examples of God foreknowing the future in Scripture? This is a pivotal question in the debate. Do we reject foreknowledge, as Open Theists do – and seek an explanation for each of them? Or do we induce from these examples a general principle that God foreknows the future?
Some of the explanations offered sound reasonable; some are rather contrived. On the whole, I find it far more plausible to induce that the examples illustrate a general principle: God foreknows the future.
Open Theism and the Question of Evil
It is a bit of a different topic but a related one. A strong motivation among Open Theists is to find an answer to the question of evil, one in which God is not responsible for evil (as he might be if he had predestined evil to do what it does). This is one reason why Open Theism strongly emphasises human (and angelic) freedom. These agents, not God, are responsible for evil in the world. And God could not have foreknown what they would freely choose to do with that freedom.
However, as Craig points out, the answer fails. Even if God does not know from all eternity what free moral agents will do, he should have a pretty good idea the moment that evil is being planned. In Craig’s words: “Boyd’s limited deity makes the problem of evil worse, not easier, for it becomes inexplicable why God just sits by, wringing his hands, while letting evils go on unchecked without any morally sufficient reason for not stopping them” (Beilby and Eddy 2001: 59).
Calvinists and others at least have the option to argue that God has some mysterious higher good in mind when he allows evil to act in his creation. In Open Theism, evil is simply the result of God taking the risk of freedom.
Which God Is Most Worthy of Worship?
Coming to the end of my two reports on God, time, and foreknowledge, the question is: whom will we worship? Which of these Gods makes our heart sing? Which God sets our soul to dance?
I know my answer. I know Open Theists consider the conclusion unfair, but I am unable to conclude otherwise: Openness Theology strikes me as an attempt to redefine God in our own image. I don’t find the resulting god very exciting. But this God I will gladly worship:
Who exists before time,
who needs nothing yet does not keep to himself,
who knows and foreknows everything
and still does not hold back.
Attribution
Cable: Steven Hrississ. https://unsplash.com/photos/fGOA5YMSHlw. CC0
Doors: https://pixabay.com/photos/doors-choices-choose-decision-1767562/. CC0
Sorry: https://pixabay.com/illustrations/pen-write-sorry-excuse-me-1329258/. CC0
View: Cristofer Jeschke. https://unsplash.com/photos/eO_sEscTbUo. CC0
References
All Bible quotations from: The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. 2001 (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles)
Augustine. 1972. Concerning the City of God against the Pagans, trans. by Henry Bettenson (New York, NY: Penguin Books)
Beilby, James K., and Paul R. Eddy (eds). 2001. Divine Foreknowledge: Four Views (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press)
Boyd, Gregory A. 2001. God of the Possible: A Biblical Introduction to the Open View of God, Third printing (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books)
Craig, William Lane. 1987. The Only Wise God: The Compatibility of Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House)
———. 2001. Time and Eternity: Exploring God’s Relationship to Time (Wheaton, Ill: Crossway)
Erickson, Millard J. 2004. What Does God Know and When Does He Know It? The Current Controversy over Divine Foreknowledge (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan)
Lewis, C. S. 1977. Mere Christianity: A Revised and Amplified Edition, with a New Introduction, of the Three Books Broadcast Talks, Christian Behaviour and Beyond Personality, 28th impr. (London: Collins)